Ohio’s two Republican senators, Jon Husted and Bernie Moreno, are calling on the Department of Homeland Security to make Chinese companies pay back the billions of dollars in tariffs they avoided through a Biden-era tariff pause. The pause, which was declared unlawful by the United States Court of International Trade in August 2025, allowed Chinese solar companies to flood the US market with artificially cheap solar products.

Unlawful Tariff Pause

The Biden administration issued a temporary pause on tariffs for solar panels originating in Southeast Asia in 2022. However, the court found that the law used to initiate the pause could not be applied to solar panels, making it unlawful. Husted and Moreno argue that Chinese solar companies should be forced to pay back the import duties they avoided under the Biden administration’s now-vacated tariff pause.

The senators claim that Customs and Border Protection has the statutory authority to issue retroactive bills of duty plus interest. They are requesting that CBP publicly release its internal review, issue retroactive bills to the companies that benefited from the tariff pause, and publicly release how much each importer owes.

National Security Concerns

Husted expressed concerns that China’s strategy is to flood the global market with subsidized solar panels, putting everyone out of business and making the US reliant on China for energy generation. This, he argues, can create instability around the globe. The senators’ letter states that the total unpaid duties represent billions of dollars owed to the US Treasury, with the vast majority owed by Chinese state-backed companies.

Original reporting: Fox News (HLL/CB) — read the source article.